He found the Parson in his study, which exhibited tastes other than clerical. Over the chimney-piece were ranged fencing-foils, boxing-gloves, and staffs for the athletic exercise of single-stick; cricket-bats and fishing-rods filled up the angles. There were sundry prints on the walls: one of Mr. Wordsworth, flanked by two of distinguished race-horses; one of a Leicestershire short-horn, with which the Parson, who farmed his own glebe and bred cattle in its rich pastures, had won a prize at the county show; and on either side of that animal were the portraits of Hooker and Jeremy Taylor. There were dwarf book-cases containing miscellaneous works very handsomely bound; at the open window, a stand of flower-pots, the flowers in full bloom. The Parson"s flowers were famous.
The appearance of the whole room was that of a man who is tidy and neat in his habits.
"Cousin," said Sir Peter, "I have come to consult you." And therewith he related the marvellous precocity of Kenelm Chillingly. "You see the name begins to work on him rather too much. He must go to school; and now what school shall it be? Private or public?"
THE REV. JOHN STALWORTH.--"There is a great deal to be said for or against either. At a public school the chances are that Kenelm will no longer be overpowered by a sense of his own ident.i.ty; he will more probably lose ident.i.ty altogether. The worst of a public school is that a sort of common character is subst.i.tuted for individual character.
The master, of course, can"t attend to the separate development of each boy"s idiosyncrasy. All minds are thrown into one great mould, and come out of it more or less in the same form. An Etonian may be clever or stupid, but, as either, he remains emphatically Etonian. A public school ripens talent, but its tendency is to stifle genius. Then, too, a public school for an only son, heir to a good estate, which will be entirely at his own disposal, is apt to encourage reckless and extravagant habits; and your estate requires careful management, and leaves no margin for an heir"s notes-of-hand and post-obits. On the whole, I am against a public school for Kenelm."
"Well then, we will decide on a private one."
"Hold!" said the Parson: "a private school has its drawbacks. You can seldom produce large fishes in small ponds. In private schools the compet.i.tion is narrowed, the energies stinted. The schoolmaster"s wife interferes, and generally coddles the boys. There is not manliness enough in those academies; no f.a.gging, and very little fighting. A clever boy turns out a prig; a boy of feebler intellect turns out a well-behaved young lady in trousers. Nothing muscular in the system.
Decidedly the namesake and descendant of Kenelm Digby should not go to a private seminary."
"So far as I gather from your reasoning," said Sir Peter, with characteristic placidity, "Kenelm Chillingly is not to go to school at all."
"It does look like it," said the Parson, candidly; "but, on consideration, there is a medium. There are schools which unite the best qualities of public and private schools, large enough to stimulate and develop energies mental and physical, yet not so framed as to melt all character in one crucible. For instance, there is a school which has at this moment one of the first scholars in Europe for head-master,--a school which has turned out some of the most remarkable men of the rising generation. The master sees at a glance if a boy be clever, and takes pains with him accordingly. He is not a mere teacher of hexameters and sapphics. His learning embraces all literature, ancient and modern.
He is a good writer and a fine critic; admires Wordsworth. He winks at fighting: his boys know how to use their fists; and they are not in the habit of signing post-obits before they are fifteen. Merton School is the place for Kenelm."
"Thank you," said Sir Peter. "It is a great comfort in life to find somebody who can decide for one. I am an irresolute man myself, and in ordinary matters willingly let Lady Chillingly govern me."
"I should like to see a wife govern _me_," said the stout Parson.
"But you are not married to Lady Chillingly. And now let us go into the garden and look at your dahlias."
CHAPTER VIII.
THE youthful confuter of Locke was despatched to Merton School, and ranked, according to his merits, as lag of the penultimate form. When he came home for the Christmas holidays he was more saturnine than ever; in fact, his countenance bore the impression of some absorbing grief.
He said, however, that he liked school very well, and eluded all other questions. But early the next morning he mounted his black pony and rode to the Parson"s rectory. The reverend gentleman was in his farmyard examining his bullocks when Kenelm accosted him thus briefly,--
"Sir, I am disgraced, and I shall die of it if you cannot help to set me right in my own eyes."
"My dear boy, don"t talk in that way. Come into my study."
As soon as they entered that room, and the Parson had carefully closed the door, he took the boy"s arm, turned him round to the light, and saw at once that there was something very grave on his mind. Chucking him under the chin, the Parson said cheerily, "Hold up your head, Kenelm. I am sure you have done nothing unworthy of a gentleman."
"I don"t know that. I fought a boy very little bigger than myself, and I have been licked. I did not give in, though; but the other boys picked me up, for I could not stand any longer; and the fellow is a great bully; and his name is b.u.t.t; and he"s the son of a lawyer; and he got my head into chancery; and I have challenged him to fight again next half; and unless you can help me to lick him, I shall never be good for anything in the world,--never. It will break my heart."
"I am very glad to hear you have had the pluck to challenge him. Just let me see how you double your fist. Well, that"s not amiss. Now, put yourself into a fighting att.i.tude, and hit out at me,--hard! harder!
Pooh! that will never do. You should make your blows as straight as an arrow. And that"s not the way to stand. Stop,--so: well on your haunches; weight on the left leg; good! Now, put on these gloves, and I"ll give you a lesson in boxing."
Five minutes afterwards Mrs. John Chillingly, entering the room to summon her husband to breakfast, stood astounded to see him with his coat off, and parrying the blows of Kenelm, who flew at him like a young tiger. The good pastor at that moment might certainly have appeared a fine type of muscular Christianity, but not of that kind of Christianity out of which one makes Archbishops of Canterbury.
"Good gracious me!" faltered Mrs. John Chillingly; and then, wife-like, flying to the protection of her husband, she seized Kenelm by the shoulders, and gave him a good shaking. The Parson, who was sadly out of breath, was not displeased at the interruption, but took that opportunity to put on his coat, and said, "We"ll begin again to-morrow.
Now, come to breakfast." But during breakfast Kenelm"s face still betrayed dejection, and he talked little and ate less.
As soon as the meal was over, he drew the Parson into the garden and said, "I have been thinking, sir, that perhaps it is not fair to b.u.t.t that I should be taking these lessons; and if it is not fair, I"d rather not--"
"Give me your hand, my boy!" cried the Parson, transported. "The name of Kenelm is not thrown away upon you. The natural desire of man in his attribute of fighting animal (an attribute in which, I believe, he excels all other animated beings, except a quail and a gamec.o.c.k) is to beat his adversary. But the natural desire of that culmination of man which we call gentleman is to beat his adversary fairly. A gentleman would rather be beaten fairly than beat unfairly. Is not that your thought?"
"Yes," replied Kenelm, firmly; and then, beginning to philosophize, he added, "And it stands to reason; because if I beat a fellow unfairly, I don"t really beat him at all."
"Excellent! But suppose that you and another boy go into examination upon Caesar"s Commentaries or the multiplication table, and the other boy is cleverer than you, but you have taken the trouble to learn the subject and he has not: should you say you beat him unfairly?"
Kenelm meditated a moment, and then said decidedly, "No."
"That which applies to the use of your brains applies equally to the use of your fists. Do you comprehend me?"
"Yes, sir; I do now."
"In the time of your namesake, Sir Kenelm Digby, gentlemen wore swords, and they learned how to use them, because, in case of quarrel, they had to fight with them. n.o.body, at least in England, fights with swords now. It is a democratic age, and if you fight at all, you are reduced to fists; and if Kenelm Digby learned to fence, so Kenelm Chillingly must learn to box; and if a gentleman thrashes a drayman twice his size, who has not learned to box, it is not unfair; it is but an exemplification of the truth that knowledge is power. Come and take another lesson on boxing to-morrow."
Kenelm remounted his pony and returned home. He found his father sauntering in the garden with a book in his hand. "Papa," said Kenelm, "how does one gentleman write to another with whom he has a quarrel, and he don"t want to make it up, but he has something to say about the quarrel which it is fair the other gentleman should know?"
"I don"t understand what you mean."
"Well, just before I went to school I remember hearing you say that you had a quarrel with Lord Hautfort, and that he was an a.s.s, and you would write and tell him so. When you wrote did you say, "You are an a.s.s"? Is that the way one gentleman writes to another?"
"Upon my honour, Kenelm, you ask very odd questions. But you cannot learn too early this fact, that irony is to the high-bred what Billingsgate is to the vulgar; and when one gentleman thinks another gentleman an a.s.s, he does not say it point-blank: he implies it in the politest terms he can invent. Lord Hautfort denies my right of free warren over a trout-stream that runs through his lands. I don"t care a rush about the trout-stream, but there is no doubt of my right to fish in it. He was an a.s.s to raise the question; for, if he had not, I should not have exercised the right. As he did raise the question, I was obliged to catch his trout."
"And you wrote a letter to him?"
"Yes."
"How did you write, Papa? What did you say?"
"Something like this. "Sir Peter Chillingly presents his compliments to Lord Hautfort, and thinks it fair to his lordship to say that he has taken the best legal advice with regard to his rights of free warren; and trusts to be forgiven if he presumes to suggest that Lord Hautfort might do well to consult his own lawyer before he decides on disputing them.""
"Thank you, Papa. I see."
That evening Kenelm wrote the following letter:--
Mr. Chillingly presents his compliments to Mr. b.u.t.t, and thinks it fair to Mr. b.u.t.t to say that he is taking lessons in boxing; and trusts to be forgiven if he presumes to suggest that Mr. b.u.t.t might do well to take lessons himself before fighting with Mr. Chillingly next half.
"Papa," said Kenelm the next morning, "I want to write to a schoolfellow whose name is b.u.t.t; he is the son of a lawyer who is called a serjeant.
I don"t know where to direct to him."
"That is easily ascertained," said Sir Peter. "Serjeant b.u.t.t is an eminent man, and his address will be in the Court Guide."
The address was found,--Bloomsbury Square; and Kenelm directed his letter accordingly. In due course he received this answer,--
You are an insolent little fool, and I"ll thrash you within an inch of your life.
ROBERT b.u.t.t.